Michael Lloyd

Michael Jeffrey Lloyd is an American record producer, arranger, songwriter and musician. After working with Mike Curb, Kim Fowley and others in the mid-to-late 1960s on musical projects including the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and Steven Spielberg's first short film, Amblin', he became a producer of such teen idol pop stars as the Osmonds, Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett in the 1970s.

During the 1980s, Lloyd supervised the music soundtrack for the film Dirty Dancing (1987)—including production of the hit "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"—and worked with Belinda Carlisle, Barry Manilow and many others. By his own account, Lloyd has earned over 100 gold and platinum records. Other sources suggest that Lloyd and Curb were introduced to each other by Kim Fowley, who had signed Lloyd to a song-publishing deal. Lloyd also recorded surf music as a member of the New Dimensions, a group that included Jimmy Greenspoon, later of Three Dog Night.

Around 1964, Lloyd began performing with brothers Shaun and Danny Harris, who attended Hollywood Professional School with Lloyd. Together they formed a group initially called the Rogues, later renamed the Laughing Wind. They recorded demos with Fowley, who then introduced the band to Bob Markley, a law graduate and aspiring performer who had already had his own TV show in Oklahoma. With Fowley's support and Markley's financial backing, Lloyd became a member of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band with the Harris brothers, Markley and drummer John Ware, releasing an album, Part One, in 1967. Fowley also released some of the Laughing Wind's demos, with other tracks featuring Markley, as Volume One, credited to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Lloyd left the band shortly afterward, but returned to contribute to their 1969 album Where's My Daddy?.

In 1967, Lloyd wrote songs and produced Fowley's solo album Love Is Alive And Well: Sounds & Scenes of the Flower Love Generation, with Fowley referring in the liner notes to Lloyd as an "..18 year old arranger and engineer who owns his own recording studio, plays 9 instruments and is lead singer and leader of The Laughing Wind, a Tower recording group." Curb allowed Lloyd to use his Hollywood Boulevard studios, and together with musicians Stan Ayeroff and Steve Baim (who were also members of Max Frost and the Troopers), Lloyd wrote and produced an album, The Smoke, which Curb released on his own Sidewalk label in 1967. Lloyd and Fowley co-produced the only album by Los Angeles psychedelic rock band St. John Green, released in 1968, and in the same year, Lloyd arranged and produced the self-titled album by the band October Country. Lloyd also provided the music for Steven Spielberg's first short film, Amblin', and worked with Curb on other movie soundtracks, including The Devil's 8 (1969). and the group released an album, Cotton Lloyd & Christian. Although the album was not successful in the US, its tracks were repackaged by Curb and Lloyd in 1976, and used as the music soundtrack for the film The Pom Pom Girls. A second Cotton, Lloyd and Christian album, Number Two, was issued in 1977.

Lloyd began working with teen idol Shaun Cassidy in 1975, producing his debut single in Europe, "Morning Girl", as well as subsequent singles including his 1977 breakthrough US #1 hit "Da Doo Ron Ron". He also produced Cassidy's albums Shaun Cassidy (1976), Born Late (1977), Under Wraps (1978) and Room Service (1979). Over the same period, Lloyd worked with rival teen star Leif Garrett, and played on and produced his 1976 debut hit "Surfin' U.S.A." and his 1977 debut album. He produced Garrett's later albums Feel The Need (1978) and Same Goes For You (1979), and both wrote and produced Garrett's hit song "I Was Made for Dancin'". He worked with Debby Boone, producing several tracks on her album You Light Up My Life (but, contrary to some sources, not its title track). In more recent years, Lloyd has worked as producer with Kimberley Locke, the first performer to have three consecutive #1 Christmas songs, "Up on the Housetop" (2005), "Jingle Bells" (2006) and "Frosty the Snowman" (2007).

Lloyd has continued to work as music supervisor and producer on movie soundtracks, including those of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie and the 1998 film Godzilla, as well as on animated TV series. He also actively supports various children's charities.